1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to protective holders, carriers and mailers used for packaging medical specimen slides during transport from a specimen collection site to a clinical laboratory for analysis.
2. Background of the Invention
It is common clinical practice during medical examinations to take biological specimens from a patient consisting of tissue or fluid samples. The specimens are usually sent to a clinical laboratory for study, in order to diagnose disease in its earliest possible stages where the chances of a cure are greatest. Small amounts of tissue or fluids are collected from the patient's body and deposited on the surface of a specimen slide, which is usually an elongated rectangle of thin glass. One end portion of the slide, approximately one quarter of the slide surface, is frosted to provide a writing surface on which patient or other specimen identifying information can be written with a suitable marker.
A most common type of disposable slide mailer, long used for forwarding specimen slides to a clinical laboratory, is made of relatively thin corrugated cardboard. A single elongated rectangular sheet of the cardboard material is divided by transverse score lines into three panels. One end panel is folded against the middle panel and glued together to make a base portion of the slide mailer. One or more elongated openings are cut in this one end panel, which when folded onto the middle panel, define slide holding wells, each dimensioned to closely receive one specimen slide. The third panel, which is the other end panel, is hinged to the middle panel along one or more score lines and can be folded over the base to cover the slide holding well or wells, to retain and protect the specimen slides. The cover is secured to the base of the mailer in its closed, folded condition by means of a small piece of adhesive tape or the like.
This basic type of slide mailer has been in common usage for decades. While such specimen slide mailers are economical and easy to make, they suffer from certain shortcomings with regard to convenience of usage and protection of the specimen material.
Firstly, the slide mailer must be opened i.e., the cover lifted from the base of the mailer, in order to examine the identifying information markings on the specimen slide. This may need to be done more than once at the laboratory, particularly in large clinical laboratories, where each slide mailer is processed through a number of administrative stages before reaching the specimen analysis station, such as a microscope station, where the specimen is subjected to microscopic examination. Each time the slide mailer is opened there is a risk of the slide falling out of its holding well. Such incidents in fact happen with some regularity in most laboratories as a result of simple human fallibility, notwithstanding the high level of care with which the specimens are normally handled. If the thin glass slide falls and breaks, a new specimen must be obtained from the originating physician, who in turn must call in the patient for a repeat visit. Patients in apparent good health frequently give a low priority to such a request from their physician, and a new specimen may not be obtained for weeks or months. Occasionally, this delay allows an incipient illness to progress from an easily curable stage to a less treatable advanced condition, with possible loss of life.
A second shortcoming of current cardboard slide mailers is that the biological specimen is exposed to contact with the inner surface of the mailer's cover during transport, as there is nothing to restrain the slide in its holding well away from the overlying cover. Such contact is undesirable because of the resulting possible loss of specimen material transferred from the slide surface onto the cover. In early stages of a disease, a positive diagnosis may depend on detection of an abnormality present in a small part of the specimen material. If this particular portion of the specimen happens to be lost due to this deficiency in the mailer package, a false negative diagnosis may result, eventually leading to unnecessary late stage treatment of disease and occasional loss of life.
A continuing need exists for low cost disposable slide mailers, particularly corrugated cardboard and paper product slide mailers, which obviate the need for opening the slide mailer in order to view identifying information marked on specimen slides, and which protect the medical specimen against contact with the cover of the slide mailer, all in order to better protect and preserve the specimen material.